Muro Vivo—Living Walls

Mexico has been at the center of major international headlines recently after the government carried out an operation that resulted in the death of Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, known as “El Mencho,” leader of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel — one of the most powerful criminal organizations in the country. Assisted by the CIA in the United States, an ambush was accomplished and El Mencho was killed, along with others on both sides. The immediate result was celebration but also a wave of violence that swept across Mexico. The images of burning vehicles were rather gruesome.

Since then, numerous of our friends and loved ones have been calling us, asking, Are you safe? Are you okay?

We are. Thank God we are well — safe and living our ordinary, creative life in our home outside Oaxaca City, in a region still regarded as calm and secure. Life here remains grounded in daily rhythms, the friendliness of neighbors, and the simple joy of sunrise light on the mountains.

We are even planning a short trip to the coast for a special celebration. Before making any definite plans, we asked a neighbor who runs a coffee cooperative near the Pacific and travels often along the new highway whether it feels peaceful. He checked with his daughter, who lives close to our favorite beach town — and the word was reassuring: the road is calm, the coast is peaceful.

In other news, this past week my neighbor Mayolo came over for a painting session with me. We set up a still life of sunflowers in a vase, with an alebrije set next to it. Over the course of two session we painted side by side. Very enjoyable and Mayolo, a creative person who makes the frames for many of our paintings, was very appreciative of the opportunity to paint together. 

And yes, my creative currents continue to pull me in new directions. I completed a short video titled Muro Vivo, or “Living Wall.” For years, I’ve photographed street art all over Oaxaca. In this new piece, an AI animation platform was used to bring those images to subtle movement, like walls awakening with breath — a little magic and a little experiment.

Meanwhile, Amy paints steadily, losing and finding herself in color and shape every day.

So — despite unsettling news and distant violence, life goes on here. We are safe. We are creative. We are grateful for friends near and far who care. And through it all, the sunflowers still turn toward the light.

Uncharted, Once More — Into the Digital Unknown

 

Another Sunday, another reckoning with whatever imaginative wind has blown this week.

Creative currents have swept me into unfamiliar territory. For better or worse, this has always been my temperament. Experiment and learn. Take risks. Wander into unmapped terrain. Refuse to stay fixed on the same route simply because it is known, profitable, and comfortable.

This time it is video that calls—street photography woven into motion, and AI animation that produces short clips which can be spliced together into something resembling a film. A moving collage. A dream stitched frame by frame.

I have rudimentary skills—enough to splice images together, add sound, create transitions. Over the years I’ve made more than one hundred short videos that live on YouTube, quietly gathering viewers and subscribers. That alone once felt daring. 

Short clip of an outing in Oaxaca. About 2.5 minutes.

But recently there has been a dive into deeper water.

Using a sophisticated creation and editing software called Runway, with a prompt and a photograph, it can generate short animated clips—moments that breathe, faces that turn, streets that flicker into motion. It feels a bit like alchemy.

Half the time, the first attempt misses the mark, the second veers into absurdity and the third surprises me. I fumble with settings. watch tutorials, mutter. Then, generate, discard, regenerate. Gradually, fragments accumulate. And eventually, there is enough material to assemble an intriguing short film.

Short clip of Vincent Van Gogh. About 2 minutes.

It is both thrilling and humbling.

Why do this?

Because it is deeply satisfying to sit in the director’s seat from start to finish—and also be the author. To imagine something that did not exist, and then coax it into being. To orchestrate image, motion, rhythm, and sound. There is a childlike delight in it. A sense of play mixed with stubborn determination.

Yet, a feeling of quiet guilt.

My other loves—painting, photography, writing, have been faithful companions spanning decades. Am I abandoning them for a shiny new fascination? They are never far away. In truth, they flow into this new work. The eye trained as a photographer guides the frame and uses an image to begin. The painter thinks in light, color and shadow. The writer shapes the prompt, searches for tone, listens for story.

Still, there are moments when I feel in water over my head. The technology is already dense and advances faster than I can absorb it. Menus, tools, timelines—so many levers and switches. At seventy-three, one could reasonably decide to simplify. To consolidate. To refine what is already mastered and stay in a niche.

But that has not been my way.

I am still willing to be a beginner. Still willing to look foolish. Still willing to wrestle with something difficult simply because it calls to me.

There is joy in grappling. Joy in not knowing and in watching a small competence slowly grow. The process is awkward, sometimes maddening—but alive.

Perhaps that is the real current I am following.

Not video. Not AI. Not even art in a particular form.

But the current of becoming.

The Thrill of Reinvention

Once again, the work has taken a turn—into a new series of colorful expressionist pieces. Throughout more than forty years of creating, I have rarely stayed in one lane. Galleries often encourage artists to find a niche and repeat what sells. I have never been comfortable with that. Landscape painting brought my greatest commercial success, yet I have continually wandered into new territories: abstraction, mixed-media, and even my HangUps series with faces suspended on clotheslines. With our move in 2019 to Oaxaca, Mexico, a group of paintings emerged from our Dos Venados studio: Memento Mori paintings of symbolic skeletons, honoring the Dia de Muertos motif.

Reinvention keeps the work alive.

This new chapter begins with pure abstraction:

Antes del Nombre, Oil on canvas, 70 x 80 cm

Fauve Mujer, Oil on canvas, 100 x 80 cm

I lay down color and motion without a plan, letting the paint lead. After that foundation is alive on the canvas, I look for what wants to emerge. In the first two paintings, that became luminous female portraits. I created them first using AI as a reference, then translated and transformed them in paint over the loose, expressive ground. They are larger than life, born from imagination and guided by technology, yet made human by the hand.

Sandia, Oil on canvas, 25 x 25 cm

Today, I shifted scale. Once the abstract background had dried, I set up a simple still life of a slice of watermelon on a plate. Working from a familiar, realistic subject sparked a different energy. A dialogue unfolded between the bold underpainting and the object before me. In the end, both voices found harmony: the grounded and the mysterious, the seen and the unforeseen.

The pleasure lies in not knowing exactly where the next brushstroke will lead. That is the freedom I have always trusted.

More: Steven Boone Fine Art

Also: https://stevenboone.myportfolio.com

The Gap in My Smile

They say bridges connect what’s been separated, but sometimes they just break and leave you gaping—literally. My bridge, the dental kind, did just that a few months ago.

But let’s back up…

Years ago in Santa Fe, my perfectionist dentist retired, and I ended up in the care of a good but less inspired family dentist. During a routine exam, he spotted a small crack in an upper molar and said, “You can live with it.”

Soon after, I left on a year-long journey around the world. Halfway through, my tooth turned traitor. In Madrid, it began to ache fiercely. I didn’t know any dentists, my Spanish faltered, and I was a stranger in pain. Salvation came in the south of Spain, where a friend introduced me to a compassionate female dentist. She took one look and said the tooth had rotted. Out it came.

In Italy, I got a false tooth. It never felt right. For years, I simply lived with the gap, smiling carefully.

Seven years ago, trouble returned. Eating popcorn, a hard kernel broke a tooth next to the gap. I ended up with a bridge—two crowns and a false tooth spanning the gap. It served well until six months ago, when it broke.

Here in Oaxaca, my dentist recommended two new crowns and an implant—a permanent solution, he said, one that would last the rest of my life. Since I was leaving for the U.S., he made a temporary bridge. It fell out a month later. Because it didn’t hurt, I decided to live again with the gap—until the area grew sensitive and I began to worry about infection.

So, the dental odyssey resumed.

The new clinic is immaculate and professional. Amy had two implants done there and was very pleased. The cost, compared to U.S. prices, made me smile wider than usual:

• Implant: 25,000 pesos

• Three crowns: 30,000 pesos

• Two root canals (surprise!): 7,000 pesos

Total: 62,000 pesos, about $3,300 USD.

In the U.S., the same work would have been $12,000–$15,000.

As I lay in the chair, my jaw numbed and the instruments humming, I drifted into my memory vault—visiting the bright rooms of my past: childhood laughter, faraway travels, the faces of those I’ve loved. I realized I’ve had a very good life—even measured from a dentist’s chair.

I marveled at the teeth themselves—how remarkable they are, enduring year after year, quietly doing their work. I felt a wave of gratitude for the Creator’s design, for such intricate workmanship that has served me so well through the decades. Teeth, like life itself, endure countless pressures and changes. What matters is how gracefully we accept their aging, and how gratefully we honor the design that made them so strong.

(See my recently completed travel memoir, called The Weight of Air) 

The Long Thirst, the Sudden Song

Having lived most of my life in North America where four distinct seasons mark the year, I am still adjusting to the rhythm of only two in Mexico. Amy and I have been here over six years now, and while I’ve grown accustomed to the shift, it never quite feels natural. We are nearing September, which means the rainy season is winding down. Soon, the long dry months—about eight of them—will return.

The change is stark. The fields that now glow with vibrant green will fade to brown. Some trees shed their leaves, and the ground turns brittle, reduced to dust in the wind.

I have always been a “plant person,” like my mother before me. Trees, flowers, green things in general speak to my soul. By the end of the dry season, many of the plants around our home—each one I know personally—seem on the verge of death. Though I water what I can, most rely on the drip system. Still, by late May, just when I find myself whispering prayers to stave off their passing, a few stubborn buds appear—miraculously. I scratch my head and wonder, where did they find the strength?

Then the rains come. At first scattered storms, and then, finally, a rhythm. Plants rejoice, bursting forth with such abandon that I spend my days cutting grass and brush, trying to keep up. Sometimes I imagine those first fragile buds are the plants calling out for the rains—and nature, listening, answers.

Now, the cornfields surrounding our village stand tall and healthy. If the skies grant just a few more generous rains, they’ll yield a good crop. But if the drought lingers year after year, the harvest suffers, and families sell their land for home lots. Already, the edges of our village are filling with new houses.

Landscape. 4 min. video

We prefer, for as long as possible, to be surrounded by nature.

Keys to the Heart: New Mexico, Oaxaca, and the Spaces Between

After a month away, the arc of our travels has closed—New Mexico’s familiar mesas, Minnesota’s lakes, and now back to Oaxaca. We landed safely on August 3rd. The journey began before sunrise in Santa Fe and ended with our neighbor Mayolo’s smile at the airport, ready to welcome us home.

A short hop took us to Dallas, where we changed planes, then crossed the border into Mexico, touching down at 12:15. Mayolo helped hoist our two large suitcases, each packed to the brim with loot from the USA: new clothes, art supplies, medicines, gifts, old photographs, and a few beloved books. Customs took one glance and waved us through.

Oaxaca is our home—of that there is no doubt—but Northern New Mexico also holds a permanent set of keys to our hearts. After so much life, love, and trial in that blessed country of mesas and mountains, it’s embedded in us. In our DNA. When we return, the streets, the food, the mountains, the very air and light feel as familiar as the rooms of an old house.

Amy’s sister arrived from Minnesota during our stay, and the two slipped easily into that rare sisterly rhythm—shopping, swapping stories, and laughing until the air seemed to sparkle. Together, they also visited their father’s gravesite at the National Cemetery in Santa Fe. A veteran of the Korean War, Daniel Cordova´s ashes are interred in the columbarium, a wall of plaques marking niches that hold the remains of those who served. The two daughters placed their hands on the marble plaque bearing his name, feeling the warmth of his presence in that quiet, dignified place.

One morning we drove to Bandelier National Monument, an hour away, where honey-colored cliffs rise in quiet grandeur. From around 1150 to 1550, this canyon sheltered the Ancestral Pueblo people—farmers, builders, artisans—whose dwellings and handprints still cling to the stone. In time, drought and the pull of migration led them away, yet as we walked the winding trails beneath a shifting sky, their spirit seemed to move with us, woven into the land itself.

And then there was the other homecoming—the house I built with my ex-wife Jean three decades ago. To visit that home again is to step into a perfectly preserved chapter of life. Now spectacularly valuable, it sits just fifteen minutes from Santa Fe’s plaza, with six-acre lots, well-spaced neighbors, hushed air, and horses grazing in corrals.

Santa Fe’s summer music scene was in full swing, with free, first-rate performances at least four nights a week. The air at sunset carried that mingling of music and mountain coolness I will never stop loving.

My daughter made a quick trip up from Albuquerque to see me one more time. We both felt grateful to be together, walking the trails of our old homestead, renewing our bonds, then sharing dinner.

Officially, we’d gone north to pare down the “stuff” still in storage—more selling, more giving away. But what remains is the distilled essence of a life, and we wondered if perhaps, someday, a part-time home there might not be impossible.

Back in Oaxaca, life quickly returned to its own tempo. Less than two days after arrival, Amy began feeling unwell—possibly something caught in transit. She waved off my suggestion for a COVID test.

“What good will it do? There’s nothing they can do,” she said.

She’s improving now, and I’m betting on a full recovery soon.

The cornfields around our home stand green and healthy. I’m back to starting my mornings outdoors—tending to the small demands and quiet pleasures that the wet season brings.

The Foreigner with an Old Key

 

Amy and I are about to trade the bougainvillea and brass bands of Oaxaca for the buzzing highways and family hearths of the United States. It’s our annual migration northward—equal parts reunion, obligation, and rediscovery.

We leave our beloved home and two dogs in the care of a capable house sitter—also a friend. Amy will fly first, bound for the green embrace of Minneapolis, where her children and sister await. Then, as she does each summer, she’ll travel to Omaha to teach at a special conference for Native American college students who are themselves becoming teachers. It’s a beautiful tradition—two concentrated days of creativity, mentorship, and cultural exchange. From there, she’ll curve back westward to Santa Fe.

I, meanwhile, will head out at almost the same hour—but in a different direction. Nine days in Mexico City call me like a raucous poem. It’s one of my favorite places to lose myself. I plan to wander with camera in hand, letting the streets speak—finding texture, light, and surprise in the swirl of life. Then north to Santa Fe, where Amy and I will reunite.

With our friend Dorsey (on left) from last years visit.

Santa Fe… always a mixture of memory and mystery. So many chapters of my life unfolded there—children born, a home built, decades of painting, friendships, love, and loss. Now, we mostly return to tend the past. Our storage unit, once packed like an overstuffed closet of old ambitions, has been pared down several times. What remains are mostly artworks—paintings and drawings from across forty years. Some whisper. Others still shout.

Old church at Trampas, north of Santa Fe.

This time, we’ve planned at least one excursion northward—to Taos. I can already see the long New Mexico sky stretched taut over sagebrush and silence. It will be good to be there again, if only for a moment.

And yet, returning to the U.S. feels stranger each year. America, viewed from afar, seems like a place in costume—trying on identities, discarding norms, reinventing itself anew with each news cycle. From the outside, it can feel surreal. From the inside, I expect it will feel even more so, given my earliest memories of my home country. This time, I arrive not quite as a citizen, but something closer to a visitor. A foreigner with an old key.

Meanwhile, The Weight of Air, my travel memoir, continues to unfold. I’ve reached the halfway point—both in writing and in the journey it chronicles. At this moment in the manuscript, I’m on the cusp of a great leap—from Europe to Africa. From Rome to Nairobi. From the ordered splendor of cathedrals and museums to the raw pulse of red earth, elephants, and the unknown.

Here’s a passage from the upcoming chapter, The Dark Continent:

Before leaving the United States, my mother pleaded, “Please don’t go to Africa—they’ll kill you for your shoes.” Her fear rang with maternal dread, fed by newsreels and phobias. But how could the journey bypass the very cradle of life?

The so-called Dark Continent called out like a siren, and something deep inside answered. It wasn’t a choice, not really. Fate had stirred, and the path opened.

Tucked in my bag was the yellow booklet—stamped with dates and signatures, proof that my body had been armed against yellow fever, typhoid, and whatever else the unknown might deliver. The vast savannas, the promise of wild beasts and red-dust roads, stirred something restless.

To once again be a white pebble on a black sand beach.

Africa promised danger, yes—but also the thrill of raw existence. And I was already leaning forward.

 

Writing this book is a journey in itself—one that runs parallel to these annual migrations of ours. Like any good traveler, I’m packing more than luggage these days. I’m carrying decades, images, voices, and dreams. 

Off we go.

Read more from the memoir: The Weight Of Air

Contributing Something Meaningful

For nearly four years now, Amy and I have welcomed neighborhood children to our home each Sunday afternoon for free art classes. It began as a modest gesture of goodwill after settling in our village outside Oaxaca. We simply wanted to share the joy of creativity—our small way of contributing something meaningful to our new community.

At first, we weren’t sure how it would go. But the children came. Week after week, they showed up eager to paint, draw, sculpt, and create. We provided all the supplies, refreshments, and a safe, welcoming space. Some of the kids had never held a paintbrush before. Others arrived shy or withdrawn but slowly came alive with each project. It became more than just a class; it became a ritual, a relationship, and at times, a refuge.

Over the years, we celebrated their milestones and mourned their struggles. We laughed, got our hands dirty in paint, baked cookies, told stories. There were difficult moments, too—times when boundaries were tested or our trust was shaken. But we always came back to the table, ready to continue.

This last Sunday, the table remained empty.

Amy prepared everything as she always does, with care and hope. But no one came.
We knew this day might come. The group has gradually dwindled. The children are growing up, moving into adolescence and its distractions. Some families have moved away, others are preoccupied with school, work, or simply life. It is a natural turning of the page.

Still, it is bittersweet. Our Sundays have been marked by the joy of shared creativity, and now, that rhythm has quieted. But we do not feel regret. We feel gratitude. We gave what we could, wholeheartedly. And we received so much in return—smiles, trust, unexpected gifts of warm tortillas, and the quiet reward of seeing imagination flourish in a child’s hands.

Service doesn’t always come with ceremony or closure. Often, it ends not with a farewell, but with an absence. And that’s okay. The door is still open. Should any of the children wander back, they will find the table ready, the paints and brushes available, and our hearts open.

Whatever happens next, this chapter has been a blessing. We carry its memories like colorful alebrijes—imperfect, vibrant, full of spirit—and remain grateful for the chance to have served. 

Declarations

Some cities whisper. Oaxaca shouts, sings, sometimes howls—and always colorfully.


For Amy and me, living just outside the city, each visit into Centro is a pilgrimage of sorts. We go not just for errands or events, but to listen. And in Oaxaca, the walls themselves have voices.



As artists, we’re always alert to surface and form. But what we find here, plastered on stucco walls and colonial façades, often stops us in our tracks. Layers of ink and wheatpaste. Stencils. Murals. Figures rising from concrete like visions.




Each outing brings fresh revelations—new works that seem to have appeared overnight. Some playful, others raw and urgent.



It’s graffiti, yes—but also graphic art of the highest order. A street-level gallery where the curators are anonymous and the exhibitions impermanent. One recurring theme we encounter is muerto—death—rendered in countless forms. Skulls, skeletons, saints of bone, eyes empty yet watching. These images, scattered across walls like quiet prophets, evoke the tradition of memento mori, reminding us of life’s fragility. They feel intimate, woven into daily life with reverence and wry humor. In Oaxaca, death is not hidden away—it dances in the open. And in that dance, something beautiful and brave emerges.

What makes the street art unforgettable is not just its aesthetic force, but its message. These aren’t just images—they’re declarations. Cries for justice. Invocations of history. Reminders of who was here first. We’ve seen faces of missing women, rendered with haunting beauty. Or portraits of Zapotec elders crowned with radiance, gazing back with dignity and warning. Even amid bright color and clever design, a fierce heart pulses underneath.

The other day, we wandered in again—my birthday, a soft afternoon. We strolled arm in arm past street musicians performing in the Zócalo, the notes of marimba and flute riding the air like butterflies. Turning down a side street, a new piece caught our eye: A slumped man, vomiting a stream not of bile, but of broken red hearts—a raw and graphic metaphor for emotional wreckage that often underlies or results from substance abuse. On his back, the phrase “Clavado en el alcohol” translates to “Nailed in alcohol” or “Stuck in alcohol”—evoking the sense of being trapped, impaled, or immobilized by addiction. A powerful play on words, conjuring both emotional and physical torment. Love, connection, heartbreak—all purged, splattered on the pavement. The hearts form a kind of visual trail; like blood drops, pointing to pain that’s been internalized too long. A street-level elegy for the many who suffer silently, and a visual cry that addiction is as much about sorrow as it is about substance. The figure is ghostlike, almost already fading, as if to say: “This is what remains when you drown your heart.”

Graffiti street art from Oaxaca—both poetic and painful.

We come in like this several times a week. The rhythm of our lives has syncopated with the city’s—market to plaza, plaza to gallery, gallery to wall. And always, the walls speak.
For two lifelong creators, there’s a special satisfaction in this: not only seeing art but being surprised by it. Art that isn’t for sale. Art that risks being torn down. Art that endures in the face of erasure. And somehow, that makes it stronger.

In Oaxaca, the city doesn’t just show you its soul. It paints it—again and again—right in front of you.

Oaxaca’s Living Walls

Every time my wife and I make the 40-minute drive from our quiet village into the vibrant heart of Oaxaca, I feel a shift—as though I’m stepping from one world into another. The journey is familiar, but what awaits is never the same.

As soon as I begin walking the streets, camera in hand, I am abundantly rewarded. The city is a gallery without walls, alive with bold graphics, murals, stencils, and wheatpaste posters. They cling to crumbling facades, dance across doors and down alleyways, and transform the mundane into something mythic. These artworks appear suddenly and disappear just as quickly—painted over, torn down, or slowly erased by sun and time. And yet, there’s always something new rising in their place.

Much of this visual feast comes from a collective known as Subterráneos, whose work pulses with the spirit of the streets—defiant, poetic, urgent. Their imagery ranges from fierce political commentary to whimsical dreamscapes, often interwoven with indigenous symbolism, social critique, or surreal humor. They are part of a larger movement here in Oaxaca, where art and activism blend seamlessly into the public sphere.

As a photographer and artist, I feel compelled to document it—not only as an evolving cultural record, but as a living dialogue between the city and its inhabitants. I often find the most striking moments when people unknowingly pass in front of the murals—when the layers of street life and street art converge. A child skipping by a giant jaguar, an old man leaning in the shadow of a painted skeleton, a woman adjusting her shawl beneath a towering goddess.

Video. About 3 1/2 minutes.

These are chance encounters, but they feel like small, sacred alignments. The kind that remind me why I keep coming back—with fresh eyes, an open heart, and my camera ready.